Excerpt from a 2015 downtown arts proposal I never submitted and can’t remember writing

On a walking tour of downtown, the guide pretends to be visiting from a later century and describes all the scenery in condescending, past-tense terms. “Here is where dozens of lawyers labored in an attempt to change the tax codes, depriving a distracted public of millions. Here is where sad office ladies wore faux fur coats and smoked analog cigs while reading paperback novels. This building used to be a sub-basement-level food court, serving canned “energy” drinks and microwaved chicken tenders. Here is a condominium that touted its own luxury even as its residents were tens of thousands of dollars underwater, to borrow a term from a bygone fiscal era. And this is an entire city block where the signs (“Barber Shop,” “Pizza Parlor,” etc) remain but nothing is left, like all the shop owners and customers had to evacuate overnight and never came back…”